Game of Thrones prequel ‘Bloodmoon’: from cast to release date, everything we know as filming starts

Charlie Brooker reveals why Miley Cyrus is in Black Mirror season 5

Here's what happened to the criminals behind the Hatton Garden heist

Hatton Garden heist: Who is Basil? All you need to know

How Channel 5 documentary explores what happened to Charlene Downes

The i newsletter

News for free thinkers

Email address:

In brief

Elizabeth Kloepfer started dating Ted Bundy in 1969

Actress Lily Collins met Kloepfer in preparation for the role

The new film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile features yet another account of the serial killer Ted Bundy and the many women he killed – but this time it’s told through the eyes of his girlfriend at the time, Elizabeth Kloepfer.

In the film, Kloepfer is played by Lily Collins – but who was the real Kloepfer and how did she get involved with Bundy?

Who was Kloepfer?

The film is actually based on Kloepfer’s book of her time with Bundy, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, which she released in 1981.

Writing under the pseudonym Elizabeth Kendall, it starts with the night she and Bundy met in a Seattle bar in 1969, and the relationship that followed.

At the time of their meeting, Kloepfer was a divorcée from Ogden, Utah who worked as a secretary at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Kloepfer had her daughter Tina with her ex-husband who was also a convicted felon – but she only found out he was a criminal after they had got married. They were divorced by the time Tina turned three.

Kloepfer and Bundy started dating, and according to Netflix’s Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, they were in love. “I loved her so much,” Bundy said, according to the newly released tapes. “It was destabilising.”

He even gave her a rose every year on September 26, the anniversary of their meeting.

“I handed Ted my life and said, ‘Here. Take care of me,'” she recalled in her memoir. “He did in a lot of ways, but I became more and more dependent upon him. When I felt his love, I was on top of the world; when I felt nothing from Ted, I felt that I was nothing.”

Suspicion

Ted Bundy is believed to have killed over 30 women in the 1970s (Photo: Netflix)

However, as the relationship progressed, Kloepfer suspected at times that Bundy might just be with her for her family’s money and status – her father was a prominent doctor in Utah.

In 1974, about five years into their relationship, when Bundy was on his murdering spree, the police released a sketch of a man called ‘Ted’ who was abducting women in Seattle. Kloepfer noticed similarities with Bundy, and became suspicious.

She went to the police and raised her suspicions about her boyfriend, and said that he had told her he had followed sorority women. Kloepfer also told police she found a bag of women’s underwear in his apartment and a bowl filled with house keys in addition to plaster of Paris and bandages. Bundy was known for faking injuries using slings in an attempt to look less threatening and ask women for help before beating and later killing them. She also found a knife in his car.

But she still continued to date him and didn’t cut ties with him until 1980, by which time he was in a relationship with Carole Ann Boone.

He called her from jail to tell her he was ‘sick’

When the police finally tracked Bundy down and arrested him, he called Kloepfer from jail.

In the recorded tapes, she says: “I asked him if he was referring to the murders to some sorority girls in Florida and he said he wouldn’t talk about it. “She asked him if he was sick and he in turn “told me to back off.”

Another day, he called again to tell her that he was in fact “sick” and that he was “consumed by something that he couldn’t understand,” something he couldn’t “contain”.

“He spent so much time trying to maintain a normal life and he just couldn’t do it,” she recalled, as documented in the docu-series. “He said that he was preoccupied with this force.”

Retreated from public eye

After she published her book, Kloepfer retreated from the public eye. She has not given any new interviews since the book was released and sometimes uses different names, such as Liz Kendall.

However for the release of the new film, which is told from her perspective, Lily Collins said that she went to visit the woman she would be portraying in the film: “I went and met the woman that I play. It was really helpful. She was so gracious, giving me material to look at and speaking to me.”

“I don’t know if she’s going to see the movie because it’s difficult, but within the filming process, she came on set and she was a positive light on-set,” she said. “You wouldn’t expect that with what happened. She gave us her support. She’s really lovely.”

Game of Thrones prequel ‘Bloodmoon’: from cast to release date, everything we know as filming starts

Charlie Brooker reveals why Miley Cyrus is in Black Mirror season 5

Here's what happened to the criminals behind the Hatton Garden heist

Hatton Garden heist: Who is Basil? All you need to know

How Channel 5 documentary explores what happened to Charlene Downes

The i's Essential Daily Briefing

We know that sometimes it’s easier for us to come to you with the news. That's why our new email newsletter will deliver a mobile-friendly snapshot of inews.co.uk to your inbox every morning, from Monday to Saturday.

This will feature the stories you need to know, as well as a curated selection of the best reads from across the site. Of course, you can easily opt out at any time, but we're confident that you won't.

Oliver Duff, Editor

By entering your email address and clicking on the sign up button below, you are agreeing to receive the latest daily news, news features and service updates from the i via email. You can unsubscribe at any time and we will not pass on your information.